Famous Proverbs Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Proverbs poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous proverbs poems. These examples illustrate what a famous proverbs poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Francois Villon
So rough the goat will scratch, it cannot sleep.
So often goes the pot to the well that it breaks.
So long you heat iron, it will glow;
so heavily you hammer it, it shatters.
So good is the man as his praise;
so far he will go, and he's forgotten;
so bad he behaves, and he's despised.
So loud you cry Christmas, it comes.
So glib...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Threefold is the march of time
While the future slow advances,
Like a dart the present glances,
Silent stands the past sublime.
No impatience e'er can speed him
On his course if he delay;
No alarm, no doubts impede him
If he keep his onward way;
No regrets, no magic numbers
Wake the tranced one from his slumbers.
Wouldst thou wisely and with pleasure,
Pass the days of life's short...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool...Read more of this...
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trees in groves,
Kine in droves,
In ocean sport the scaly herds,
Wedge-like cleave the air the birds,
To northern lakes fly wind-borne ducks,
Browse the mountain sheep in flocks,
Men consort in camp and town,
But the poet dwells alone.
God who gave to him the lyre,
Of all mortals the desire,
For all breathing men's behoof,
Straitly charged him, "Sit aloof;"
Annexed a warning, poets say,
To the bright premium,—
Ever...Read more of this...
by
John Trumbull
In elder days, in Saturn's prime,
Ere baldness seized the head of Time,
While truant Jove, in infant pride,
Play'd barefoot on Olympus' side,
Each thing on earth had power to chatter,
And spoke the mother tongue of nature.
Each stock or stone could prate and gabble,
Worse than ten labourers of Babel.
Along the street, perhaps you'd see
A Post disputing with a Tree,
And mid their arguments...Read more of this...
by
William Cowper
(Proverbs, viii. 22-31)
"Ere God had built the mountains,
Or raised the fruitful hills;
Before he fill'd the fountains
That feed the running rills;
In me from everlasting,
The wonderful I am,
Found pleasures never wasting,
And Wisdom is my name.
"When, like a tent to dwell in,
He spread the skies abroad,
And swathed about the swelling
Of Ocean's mighty flood;
He wrought by weight and measure,
And I was with Him...Read more of this...
by
The Bible
If we keep hiding away our sin
And cover our transgressions up
And we do not come to a place of confession
To allow the light of His love
To reveal to us where we're in need
Of forgiveness from the Lord
Then we will not prosper in our ways
Or know His mercy at all
But when we confess all of our sins
Forsaking what is not right,
We...Read more of this...
by
Oscar Wilde
Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire,
From passionate pain to deadlier delight, -
I am too young to live without desire,
Too young art thou to waste this summer night
Asking those idle questions which of old
Man sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told.
For, sweet, to feel is better than to know,
And wisdom is a childless heritage,
One pulse...Read more of this...
by
The Bible
The name of the Lord
Is such a strong tower,
No evil can conquer it
Nor rob it of its power
And all of the righteous
Find refuge in its strength
And safety from the enemy
From the fiery darts he sends
For His name is so mighty
No other is the same
A strong and mighty fortress,
Forever shall remain.Scripture Poem © Copyright Of M.S.Lowndes...Read more of this...
by
Erica Jong
Here, at the end of the world,
the flowers bleed
as if they were hearts,
the hearts ooze a darkness
like india ink,
& poets dip their pens in
& they write.
"Here, at the end of the world,"
they write,
not knowing what it means.
"Here, where the sky nurses on black milk,
where the smokestack feed the sky,
where the trees tremble in terror
& people come to resemble them....Read more of this...
by
William Strode
The first day of this month the last hath bin
To that deare soule. March never did come in
So lyonlike as now: our lives are made
As fickle as the weather or the shade.
March dust growes plenty now, while wasting fate
Strike heare to dust, well worth the proverbs rate.
I could be angry with the fates that they
This man of men so...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
(To Edgar Lee Masters, with great respect)
HERE upon the prarie
Is our ancestral hall.
Agate is the dome,
Cornelian the wall.
Ghouls are in the cellar,
But fays upon the stairs.
And here lived old King Silver Dreams,
Always at his prayers.
Here lived gray Queen Silver Dreams,
Always signing psalms,
And haughty Grandma Silver Dreams,
Throned with folded palms....Read more of this...
by
John Donne
Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love,
And in that sophistry, Oh, thou dost prove
Too subtle: Foole, thou didst not understand
The mystic language of the eye nor hand:
Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air
Of sighs, and say, This lies, this sounds despair:
Nor by th' eyes water call a malady
Desperately hot, or changing feverously.
I had not taught thee,...Read more of this...
by
The Bible
If you will receive God's words
And treasure all His commands
Being attentive to godly wisdom,
He'll be your shield from harm
If you raise your voice for understanding
And cry out for godly insight
Longing for godly direction,
Each and every day of your life,
And if you seek for God's wisdom
As for treasure that is hidden
Then you will know the fear of the Lord
And have His...Read more of this...
by
Michael Drayton
As Love and I, late harbor'd in one inn,
With proverbs thus each other entertain:
"In Love there is no lack," thus I begin;
"Fair words make fools," replieth he again;
"Who spares to speak doth spare to speed," quoth I;
"As well," saith he, "too forward as too slow";
"Fortune assists the boldest," I reply;
"A hasty man,"...Read more of this...
by
Charles Simic
A New Version: 1980
What is that little black thing I see there
in the white?
Walt Whitman
One
Out of poverty
To begin again:
With the color of the bride
And that of blindness,
Touch what I can
Of the quick,
Speak and then wait,
As if this light
Will continue to linger
On the threshold.
All that is near,
I no longer give it a name.
Once a stone hard...Read more of this...
by
John Wilmot
At five this morn, when Phoebus raised his head
From Thetis' lap, I raised myself from bed,
And mounting steed, I trotted to the waters
The rendesvous of fools, buffoons, and praters,
Cuckolds, whores, citizens, their wives and daughters.
My squeamish stomach I with wine had bribed
To undertake the dose that was prescribed;
But turning head, a sudden curséd view
That innocent provision overthrew,
And without drinking,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Pinsky
Dire one and desired one,
Savior, sentencer--
In an old allegory you would carry
A chained alphabet of tokens:
Ankh Badge Cross.
Dragon,
Engraved figure guarding a hallowed intaglio,
Jasper kinema of legendary Mind,
Naked omphalos pierced
By quills of rhyme or sense, torah-like: unborn
Vein of will, xenophile
Yearning out of Zero.
Untrusting I court you. Wavering
I seek your face, I read
That Crusoe's knife
Reeked of you, that to defile you
The...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
'TIS easier far a wreath to bind,
Than a good owner fort to find.
I KILL'D a thousand flies overnight,
Yet was waken'd by one, as soon as twas light.
To the mother I give;
For the daughter I live.
A BREACH is every day,
By many a mortal storm'd;
Let them fall in the gaps as they may,
Yet a heap of dead is ne'er form'd.
WHAT harm...Read more of this...
by
Sylvia Plath
How this tart fable instructs
And mocks! Here's the parody of that moral mousetrap
Set in the proverbs stitched on samplers
Approving chased girls who get them to a tree
And put on bark's nun-black
Habit which deflects
All amorous arrows. For to sheathe the virgin shape
In a scabbard of wood baffles pursuers,
Whether goat-thighed or god-haloed. Ever since that first Daphne
Switched her incomparable back
For a...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
Well: Death is a huge omnivorous Toad
Grim squatting on a twilight road.
He catcheth all that Circumstance
Hath tossed to him.
He curseth all who upward glance
As lost to him.
Once in a whimsey mood he sat
And talked of life, in proverbs pat,
To Eve in Eden, -- "Death, on Life" --
As if he knew!
And so he toadied Adam's wife
There, in the dew.
O dainty...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
(a) radical
ban all fires
and places where people congregate
to create comfort
put an end to sleep
good cooking
and the delectation of wine
tear lovers apart
piss on the sun and moon
degut all heavenly harmony
strike out across the bitter ice
and the poisonous marshes
make (if you dare) a better world
(b) expect poison from standing water
(iii)
lake erie
why not as a joke one night
pick up your...Read more of this...
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